Reuters: Regulatory News: UPDATE 1-SMA Solar books Q1 operating loss on solar sector woes

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UPDATE 1-SMA Solar books Q1 operating loss on solar sector woes May 15th 2013, 05:50 Wed May 15, 2013 1:50am EDT * Q1 EBIT loss 8.4 mln eur vs f'cast 13 mln loss * Says still cannot rule out loss in current year * Shares indicated down 0.8 percent FRANKFURT, May 15 (Reuters) - Germany's SMA Solar reported its second straight quarterly loss and said it would cut more jobs, under pressure from free-falling prices and a looming trade war that has hurt margins in the solar sector. The loss before interest and taxes in the first three months of the year was 8.4 million euros ($11 million), compared with an operating profit of 42.8 million a year earlier and with a loss of 13 million forecast by analysts in a Reuters poll. "Subsidy cuts in major European markets, a still unresolved debt crisis and the possibility of punitive duties on Chinese modules in Europe had a negative effect on demand for PV inverters," the company said, confirming it could not rule out a loss for the current year. Last week, the European Commission agreed to impose punitive import duties on solar panels from China in a move to guard against what it sees as the dumping of cheap goods in Europe. SMA is the world's largest maker of solar inverters, key components needed to feed power generated from solar panels into the electricity grid. Overcapacity of cells and modules has led to a pricing crisis in the solar industry over the past four years, with Suntech's Wuxi unit becoming the latest group to be caught up in insolvency proceedings. The crisis has filtered through to SMA's operating margin, which plummeted from about 27 percent in 2010 to 7 percent last year. The company reiterated it could not rule out an operating loss this year. Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

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